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Volume 26 Issue 5 - February 2021

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So, How Much Ground WOULD a ground hog hog? community arts and the Dominion Foundries end run; the vagaries of the concert hall livestreaming ban; hymns to freedom; postsecondary auditions do the COVID shuffle; and reflections on some of the ways the music somehow keeps on being made - PLUS 81 (count them!) recordings we've been listening to. Also a page 2 ask of you. Available in flipthrough format here and in print February 10.

The WholeNote VOLUME

The WholeNote VOLUME 26 NO 5 | FEB 5 – MAR 19 Centre for Social Innovation 720 Bathurst St., Suite 503, Toronto ON M5S 2R4 PHONE 416-323-2232 | FAX 416-603-4791 Publisher/Editor in Chief | David Perlman publisher@thewholenote.com Chairman of the Board | Allan Pulker directors@thewholenote.com EDITORIAL Managing Editor | Paul Ennis editorial@thewholenote.com Recordings Editor | David Olds discoveries@thewholenote.com Digital Media Editor | Sara Constant editorial@thewholenote.com Social Media Editor | Danial Jazaeri dan@thewholenote.com Listings Editor | John Sharpe listings@thewholenote.com jazz@thewholenote.com SALES, MARKETING & MEMBERSHIP Concert & Event Advertising / Membership | Karen Ages members@thewholenote.com Production & Operations / Advertising Art | Jack Buell jack@thewholenote.com, adart@thewholenote.com Classified Ads | classad@thewholenote.com Website/Systems Support | Kevin King systems@thewholenote.com Circulation/Subscriptions | Chris Malcolm & Sheila McCoy circulation@thewholenote.com SUBSCRIPTIONS per year + HST (9 issues)* *international subscriptions: additional postage applies THANKS TO THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS Wendalyn Bartley, Brian Chang, Paul Ennis, Robert Harris, David Jaeger, Jennifer Parr, David Perlman, Colin Story, Andrew Timar, Steve Wallace CD Reviewers Sophie Bisson, Larry Beckwith, Stuart Broomer, Max Christie, Sam Dickenson, Raul da Gama, Janos Gardonyi, Richard Haskell, Scott Irvine, Tiina Kiik, Kati Kiilaspea, Roger Knox, Barry Livingston, Pamela Margles, Lesley Mitchell-Clarke, Cheryl Ockrant, David Olds, Ted Parkinson, Ivana Popovic, Alan Pulker, Cathy Riches, Terry Robbins, Michael Schulman, Michael Schwartz, Adam Scime, Andrew Scott, Melissa Scott, Sharna Searle, Adam Sherkin, Bruce Surtees, Yoshi Maclear Wall Ken Waxman, Mathew Whitfield Proofreading Sara Constant, Paul Ennis, David Perlman, John Sharpe Listings Team Ruth Atwood, Tilly Kooyman, John Sharpe, Gary Heard, Colin Story Design Team Kevin King, Susan Sinclair Circulation Team Lori Sandra Aginian, Wende Bartley, Beth Bartley & Mark Clifford, Jack Buell, Sharon Clark, Manuel Couto, Paul Ennis, Robert Faulkner, Soudy Gaeeni, Terry Gaeeni, James Harris, Micah Herzog, Jeff Hogben, Bob Jerome, Chris Malcolm, Luna Walker- Malcolm, Sheila McCoy, Lorna Nevison, Garry Page, Andrew Schaefer, Tom Sepp, Julia Tait, Dave Taylor. an Ontario government agency un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario STORIES & INTERVIEWS 22 JAZZ NOTES | New Year, Same Old | STEVE WALLACE 24 POST-SECONDARY MUSIC EDUCATION | Assessment as a Two-Way Street | COLIN STORY 26 BANDSTAND | Remembering Jack MacQuarrie | DAVID PERLMAN 54 REARVIEW MIRROR | Suspended Animation, or Animated Suspense? | ROBERT HARRIS 26 Free Event Listings NEW! Weekly online updates 6pm every Tuesday for Friday posting Print listings deadline Midnight, Monday March 1 Display Advertising, reservation deadline 6pm Tuesday March 2 Classifieds deadline 6pm Saturday March 6 Publication Dates Friday, March 12 (online) Friday, March 19 (print) Volume 26 No 6 March 19 – May 7, 2021 Upcoming Dates & Deadlines WholeNote Media Inc. accepts no responsibility or liability for claims made for any product or service reported on or advertised in this issue. Printed in Canada Couto Printing & Publishing Services Circulation Statement December 2020 8,000 printed & distributed Canadian Publication Product Sales Agreement 1263846 ISSN 14888-8785 WHOLENOTE Publications Mail Agreement #40026682 DISCOVERIES: RECORDINGS REVIEWED 32 Editor’s Corner | DAVID OLDS 34 Strings Attached | TERRY ROBBINS 36 Vocal 39 Classical and Beyond 42 Modern and Contemporary 46 Jazz and Improvised Music 49 Pot Pourri 50 Something in the Air | KEN WAXMAN 52 Old Wine, New Bottles | BRUCE SURTEES 53 Other Fine Vintages LISTINGS 28 By Date 31 Classified Ads Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: WholeNote Media Inc. Centre for Social Innovation 503–720 Bathurst Street Toronto ON M5S 2R4 COPYRIGHT © 2020 WHOLENOTE MEDIA INC thewholenote.com 4 | February 2021 thewholenote.com

FOR OPENERS | DAVID PERLMAN Groundhog Day, Again How much ground would a groundhog hog If a groundhog could hog ground? Not nearly as much as the other hogs do. Don’t just believe me. Look around. Somewhere out there, in Hogtown, there’s a developer shitting bricks. Our lead story by Brian Chang about the Dominion Foundries at 153 Eastern Avenue goes into the details of the community response to our provincial government’s end run around the city’s usual planning procedures, so I won’t go into detail here. And I have no idea who the particular developer is who did this deal with the Ontario party in power. But I have a sneaking suspicion that by the time you read this, their names will be known and the aforementioned bricks will hit the fan. Even if I did know, mind you, I probably wouldn’t say, because here at The WholeNote we are not well equipped for the fast-moving “big scoop” newshound business. As I mentioned, with my other hat on, on page 2, these days we can’t even keep up, in print anyway, with the dizzying pace at which our formerly reliable monthly concert calendar, the backbone of what we have always existed to do, goes out of date before we’ve even hit the street. But for now let’s stick with the growing stink around the Dominion Foundries site. The developers could turn out to be party-in-power cronies, about to benefit from a sleazy provincial end-run under cover of of COVID darkness. Or at the other end of the spectrum they could be one of a rarer species: developers who understand that when they participate in building functional communities it costs more at first but makes what they build, in the longer term, a more valued place to be. Or they could be somewhere in between – not particularly interested in the longer term because why should they care about the longer term when there’s always new ground to hog? I’m no Wiarton Willie or Punxsutawney Phil when it comes to prognostications, but if I have to guess, I am leaning more towards crony than community builder. I’d love to be wrong. Let’s just say, for sake of argument, that the community alliance (arts groups, existing residential associations and business districts, housing advocates) that has temporarily prevented demolition of the heritage structures on the site wins a much bigger victory, and manages to persuade, compel or publicly shame the province and whomever they’re in cahoots with here into some form of meaningful negotiations, however long it takes to get there. That’s when things will get really interesting. Because one of the things that will immediately be put to the test will be the word community itself. And that will mean having to be specific about what “the community” does want, rather than just agree on what it doesn’t. At which point things either cohere into something splendidly more than the sum of its parts, or disintegrate into clusters of competing visions, with epithets like “elitist” starting to fly. Let’s hope it’s the former, and we end up with something worth putting on the map. So what’s with all these groundhogs? In the 1993 film Groundhog Day a jaded Pittsburgh weatherman reluctantly makes his way into the western Pennsylvania hinterland for the station’s obligatory coverage of the annual Groundhog Day hoopla as Punxsutawney Phil, for the 135th consecutive time, is prodded out of hibernation into the early morning cold, and either sees his shadow or doesn’t. If he does – sorry folks, six more weeks of winter, as decreed by Phil or Willie or Sam, for Punxsutawney; or, due north, for Wiarton; or down east for Shubenacadie. In the film, our human weather forecaster (also called Phil), finds himself trapped in time, waking to the same song on the radio, going through the same day over and over again each time with variations, but with each episode ending and restarting the same way – trapped in the same day, with the same song on the radio, without hope of redemption, until …. So here’s the really terrifying thought du jour: what would happen if each time Willie or Sam or Phil heads out of hibernation they have forgotten the previous excursus, and thinks it’s still February 2? Does that mean we get six weeks piled on another six weeks, and another... Just think what that would be like. At some point the whole Groundhog Day routine, designed as a fun and fine way of putting a small town on the map, would turn into a predictable moment of dread – a bit like the regular province-byprovince COVID briefings, either announcing that because it’s gloomy out there things are about to get bright; or that, precisely because we have started behaving as though things are looking brighter, there’s now an even longer shadow of doubt as to when, or even whether, they will. They will. And in the meanwhile, here are some stories to read. TWITTER @MCALLISTER_MARK publisher@thewholenote.com thewholenote.com February 2021 | 5

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